Trees (cont.)

I seem to have developed a bit of a thing about trees! All of the artwork in my lounge is tree related (except the photo wall) so I thought this little whatchamacallit might fit in well. I love that it looks almost magical - you can imagine the dots above the tree being little fairies or fireflies (well, I can anyway!).

I am now home from the holibobs, back to the land where t'internet works on my phone thank goodness. I mean, how do people manage? I do everything on my phone!!

Heck of a journey home though. A lovely, smooth drive up through Wales - not a lorry or tractor in sight - and I actually laughed out loud in joy when I got to the dual carriageway at Wrexham :-)

Plain sailing then until junction 22 of the M62 where there were, according to the matrix signs, "long delays to junction 24". Now, normally I'd just sit there and fume but today I decided to be daring. Well, I had the sat nav didn't I? So, off I came at J22 thinking I'd zip along the A roads and pop back onto the motorway at Ainley Top (J24), getting ahead of all those poor saps who'd stayed on the motorway.

Huge mistake.

Huge.

I was one of many to make this decision, in my defence. What I (and possibly they) didn't know, was that the only way to go was down a long, winding, single lane road. Miles of it. So we queued. And queued. Near the bottom of said long, winding road, I looked over to see the traffic just past J22 of the M62 flowing freely...

I turned right at the end if the road towards Elland, where the stupid sat nav wanted to take me back onto the M62 but in the wrong direction. Er, no. The only other direction available was Halifax, which was fine as I know how to get to Bradford from there and back onto the motorway. So, off I turned.

Straight into miles of stationary traffic. Sweltering heat, not a hint of a breeze, not moving. At least I had water in the car. I felt most sorry for a bald chap in a roofless (sorry, I can't think of the right term) car. His head was gleaming bright red, poor man. At least I had the car roof to shelter me!

As the traffic crawled along, I thought well at least the turn for Halifax seems to be coming up, and it looks like everyone's going the other way - result!

No. Road closed. Continue to queue please to go in the wrong direction!!

Well I wasn't having any of that, so I did a (quite possibly illegal) u-turn and went back the other way. Finally managed to get to Brighouse, on to Bradford and back to the motorway - phew. Now get out of my way!!!

Unfortunately, the little detour added 2 hours to my journey (7 hours instead of 5) so I was too late to pick up Charlie on the way home. I guess he'll just have to cope with an extended holiday - it's not like I told him when I'd be back anyway...

Two glasses of vino, a snooze and two coffees later and I feel almost human again.

Really though, I just shouldn't be allowed to make decisions. Particularly not where travel/directions are involved!

x